Yoga and Interesting Drunken Decisions

Life's been pretty crazy the past couple of days, which is why I haven't posted -- Sunday night frisbee turned into one of the best drunken nights I've had in awhile, which made the next day at jury duty sooo much fun... I didn't get picked for a case -- I got called for one at 10:30 am, they made us wait until 12, then let us have a 2-hour lunch break in which I took a good long nap at home, and then right when we got back, they told us they didn't need us anymore. So then I rush back to the office since it's our all-associate track retreat, which was super fun last year with a scavenger hunt all around the city, and I didn't want to miss whatever they had planned this year. 

Except this year, they nixed all the fun and basically had us do more work -- in 2 hours, we got a business case and had to create a 15-minute PowerPoint deck and then give a presentation to the 3 top principals in our office.  Yeah, don't know why I rushed back from jury duty for that. Uggh.  Although our team did win the competition, so I got a $10 iTunes gift card.  So at this point, I was still pretty hungover and my stomach was not feeling so hot.  So as part of the retreat, we go out to Fuji Mountain, a Japanese restaurant + karaoke bar.  And of course they give us 2 free drinks at the bar, plus unlimited wine with dinner.   So what do I do when I still have a hangover? Drink more, of course!  Man.  I made some interesting life decisions in the past 24 hours ; ) 

 And now, I just came back from yoga class at my gym.  I always get home from work on Tuesdays and during dinner I think to myself "Should I go to yoga? How much can 1 hour of glorified stretching really do?". So (most of the time) I don't go, but when I do, I always leave feeling refreshed and limber and content. You would think that as an intelligent human being, I would remember these feelings the next time I contemplate whether or not to go, but nope, each time I am pleasantly surprised.  The only drawback is that this particular teacher at Bally's has us do downward-facing dog, like every other move,

Downward-facing dog

Pigeon pose

which is really hard on your shoulders and arms if you're not like a super-buff man.  But besides that, I actually really enjoy it for stretching the muscles that I know are becoming useless because I sit in a chair for 9 hours a day.  There's been a lot of articles out recently about the health effects of sitting for too long.  So yeah, my favorite pose for really stretching the hip muscles is the pigeon pose (above right).  You basically just tuck one leg under, square your hips, and extend one leg behind you.  I highly recommend it if you have a 9-5 job sitting in front of a computer.

So besides working those muscles, another plus to going to yoga at Bally's is that this teacher literally gives good life advice to you while you're doing all these poses.  Today she was telling us how it's sometimes difficult to make decisions if they're uncomfortable, but you just have to plow through it if it's the right decision.  It's like having a personal psychologist and a trainer all rolled into one. 

I don't think I would need yoga as much, or find it as refreshing, if I didn't live smack dab in the middle of a city.  Yoga has a certain way of humanizing you, and I find I need that a lot since city living tends to make you feel like a robot, desensitizing you to the people around you and just generally making you feel invisible even when you're surrounded by millions of people.  So yeah, with the relaxing, the stretching, the calm music and the personal psychologist/trainer, I begin to feel a little bit more alive and alert and responsive to my surroundings, almost as if I lived in the lovely suburbs again : )